I Can Breathe Again': Former Hostage's 498-Day Ordeal in Gaza

498 days. That's how long Sasha Troufanov counted in the darkness of Gaza's tunnels. The 30-year-old Amazon engineer can recall every detail of his capture on October 7, 2023, and his release in February 2025. This week, with the return of the final hostage's body, he says he can finally "breathe again."

But his story raises uncomfortable questions about survival, trauma, and what comes after the cameras stop rolling.

From Kibbutz to Captivity

Troufanov was visiting Kibbutz Nir Oz near the Gaza border with his fiancée Sapir Cohen and family when Palestinian gunmen stormed their home. Cohen hid under a bed wrapped in a blanket, but both were eventually captured. "I saw the terrorist with so much anger and hate in his face, holding his knife trying to stab me even more," Troufanov recalls.

Shot twice in each leg while trying to escape, he was beaten unconscious with a rifle butt. Upon arrival in Gaza, civilians attacked him. "I thought, 'This is the moment you're going to die.'" Medical treatment was virtually non-existent—his broken leg was "treated" with a wooden broom handle and metal grating.

What sets Troufanov's ordeal apart wasn't just the physical abuse, but the psychological warfare of near-total isolation. Of his 498 days in captivity, he saw another hostage for only two days.

The Psychology of Isolation

For over six weeks, Troufanov was kept in an above-ground cage, given barely enough food to survive. One guard repeatedly tried to coerce him into sexual acts, while a hidden camera filmed his weekly shower. "I noticed it and had to shower while avoiding that angle," he says matter-of-factly.

The underground phase was worse. Months alone in cramped, humid tunnels so dark "I couldn't see my hand in front of my face." The silence was broken only by food deliveries. "I remember feeling that I am buried underneath the ground while I am still alive. I was losing it. Many times I lost hope completely."

This wasn't random cruelty—it was calculated psychological torture designed to break the human spirit.

The Burden of Survival

With Monday's return of Ran Gvili's body, no Israeli hostages remain in Gaza for the first time since 2014. Of the 251 people taken on October 7, when about 1,200 others were killed, all have now returned—alive or dead. Israel's military response killed more than 71,660 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

"It felt wonderful. We waited so long for this to happen," Troufanov says about the final return. "I was carrying this burden ever since I came back. Although we were released, we didn't really come out of Gaza because our friends and brothers were still there."

But the moment was bittersweet—Monday was also his father Vitaly's birthday. Troufanov only learned upon his release that his father had been murdered on October 7.

Beyond Reconstruction

As Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan enters its second phase, the focus shifts to reconstruction and border openings. The Rafah crossing will reopen, Gaza will be rebuilt, and Hamas will be disarmed. But Troufanov isn't convinced these measures address the root problem.

"The terrorists were telling me: 'We will do this again and again,'" he recalls. "Rebuilding Gaza and opening the Rafah crossing is in vain as it will never solve the real problem. We need to find a way to make this hatred and encouragement of terrorist activity stop."

It's a perspective shaped by 498 days of hearing his captors' ideology firsthand. While reconstruction addresses physical damage, what addresses the psychological infrastructure of conflict?

The Victory of Continuing

Troufanov is currently on crutches after leg surgery but hopes to dance at his wedding to Sapir Cohen in a few weeks. "It's a victory: overcoming hate and fear and saying to ourselves: 'We will build life together and we will continue.'"

Yet questions linger about the 492 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire began, the four Israeli soldiers who've died, and whether this cycle can truly be broken.